Tuesday, May 25, 2004

Moderate Bias: The journalism census came out. It appears that most of us characterize ourselves as (gasp) moderates!

Conservatives point to the Pew results and argue that the numbers confirm their claims that we're a bunch of liberals. Granted, most journalists are more liberal than Rush Limbaugh. And we do tend to favor some causes, such as abortion rights for women and marriage rights for homosexuals, more than the average American.

But just because a percentage of reporters call themselves liberal than the general population doesn't mean the press is dominated. I think we can cease with the argument that news reporters are conspiring to get Democrats elected. Just think about it this way -- we control almost all the dissemination of news and information in this country, and yet we enjoy a Republican control over all three branches of government. Not the sign of a very successful conspiracy movement.

Truth is, I know many conservative and liberal journalists. But just about all of them work their hardest to make sure their personal feelings do not make it into news reports. And every newspaper strives to appear balanced and objective (or fair and balanced, as it were).

The only problem with this survey is nobody agrees what moderate means. To many, "moderate" means "reasonable". And both left and right wingnuts may see their extremist ways as reasonable.

So let's keep an eye out for biased articles, because they do exist. And we can debate the news media's role in covering controversial issues. But let's be a bit more rational about the conspiracy theories.